French Defense 3 c4!?

If declining the gambit leaves to a worse position, then the gambit is flawed. I don't expect my opponents to play "help chess."

Do you contend that 5. .. exf3 is the best move for black from that position? If so, why?

What does it do for black that "pays for" the help it gives white in developing? Why is it not a wasted tempo? Why is it ok to give white a development edge in that position?

By way of data: while there are only 40 games in my database from the position after 5. ... Bd4, it scores 60% for black. 5. ... exf3 is not much better, with only abou 60 games, but it scores less than 50%  for black. Not exactly a ringing endorsement from the database as a reason to choose 5. ... exf3, but definitely food for thought as to if it is wise to play this line at all as white!

If declining the gambit leaves to a worse position, then the gambit is flawed. I don't expect my opponents to play "help chess."

Do you contend that 5. .. exf3 is the best move for black from that position? If so, why?

What does it do for black that "pays for" the help it gives white in developing? Why is it not a wasted tempo? Why is it ok to give white a development edge in that position?

By taking the pawn at f3 you get a one pawn material edge. If your defensive skills are good then you should win the game. A good majority
of my opponents do take the pawn at f3. And the tournament game that
I did win occurred about 11 years ago. For me I get better results with my
gambits than in regular standard openings. This may not be true for anyone else. Against a gambit I will take the pawn and usually win. If you
have good attacking skills then you should also have good defensive skills.

Best Regards
DarthMusashi

Black has a 1 pawn material advantage prior to 5. .. exf3. 5. ... exf3 is best met by 6. Nxf3 meaning that Black's material advantage is no greater than after any other move which does not lose material.

This move does not increase black's material advantage, but it certainly increases white's development advantage. Therefore your explanation is flawed.

Why would black want to play this move?

"It's the main line" is, btw, not an answer. What is the concrete positional and/or tactical basis for black wanting to prefer this move?

And if 5. ... exf3 is the best move for black, why does it score nearly 15% worse for black in ChessBase's Megabase 2012 than 5. ... Bb4? That is, after all, a fairly significant difference in results.

hhhmmm

4.c4 in the exchange french isn't bad, I'm not scared of 4..Bb4+

It's not bad, but there are other lines that give White more chances at having an advantage.  Even without 4...Bb4+, Black has a number of ways to reach equality fairly easily.

Black reaches equality simply by white going for the exchange.

Let me rephrase myself slightly, then: By equality, I mean "equality where it is almost completely agreed that it's an equal game".  Apparently there was an idiotic debate (before I joined this site, thankfully) about whether or not White had a very slight advantage in the Exchange French due to his extra tempo.  My personal opinion is the same as yours in that it's an equal game instantly in the French Exchange.  At least the 4.c4 Exchange is a "better" try for an advantage against the French than something even worse, like 2.f4.

Personally black equalizes quickly in the French rather easily in all variations I believe. I can't name any variation in the French where white keeps a forced advantage.

Truncate this anywhere you want

White can outplay black sure but you can't force an advantage against the French. It's a great opening

Otherwise, white loses the e4 pawn, I think.

Generally, I think that the line that most french players hate to face is the Tarrasch with 3.Nd2, after which white DOES have a pretty big advantage (as in other french lines) and black does not have that much dynamic play as in other variations, but of course it is still completely playable from the black side. Anyhow, this is getting away from the topic. What do I think about 3.c4? I think that if black plays accurate chess for about 5 moves he will have an advantage.

And here I thought all you did was provoke people and gave useless variations of "wrote" in the quotes.  What a relief.

As much as I love the French, I disagree that Black "equalizes quickly in the French rather easily in all variations" as lolurspammed puts it.  There are some lines where Black equalizes quicker than others (especially the Exchange), but he generalizes it way too much.  In particular, I believe 3.Nc3 is White's best way of trying for an advantage, specifically the Classical Steinitz.  Black can equalize, sure, but I think it's a longer road than in other lines.

As for the game you gave, I think Black has already equalized by move 9, where he has a very solid structure that he can defend well.  I would say White's position is slightly easier, but I personally think that having an easier position to play doesn't necessarily mean that the position isn't equal (which I am willing to explain).  In fact, I think the first place where Black actually went wrong was 14...Rd5?!, and after looking through some lines I think a better move would have been 14...h6!, which seems somewhat surprising because it seems to give White an excuse to play Bxf6.  In fact, Black's resulting pawn structure is surprisingly very defendable, and the line that illustrates my point is 14...h6! 15.Bxf6 gxf6 16.Qg4+ Kf8 17.Nf3 f5 18.Qh4 Kg7!, where Black's kingside holds together due to the pawn on h6 guarding the crucial g5 square, all while threatening moves such as Bxf3 and Qe7.  However, I think 15.Bf4 is an improvement, but after 15...Rd4 followed by Ne4 I think Black is in the driver's seat (and I also don't trust the computer's recommendation of 16.Ng4 in my line).

@Robert: I haven't really had any of those problems playing against the Tarrasch, not sure where you get that idea from.  I've done perfectly fine with 3...Be7, and recently I've been trying out ThrillerFan's suggestions with 3...c5 with good success.  Even with those problems aside, I don't see how White has a "pretty big advantage" with the Tarrasch as you put it.  He might have a small one and an easier game, but nothing that would be considered big.  Focusing back in, though, Black can just respond to 3.c4? with dxe4, when I think the inclusion of White's c4 and Black's e6 is in Black's favor.  I don't like 4.f3?! either, as I think responding with Nc6 is best, when the resulting play reminds me of an improved Icelandic Gambit.

Actually black is equal in the Steinitz and in the Winawer..prove whites advantage when GMs struggle to break the Winawer.

From what I've heard, there have been some problems for Black in both introduced in Negi's book, although I admittedly have yet to buy it due to concentrating on work.  Nevertheless, in my games I've seen Black seem to struggle with the Steinitz and the Winawer the most, with me playing the former from both sides of the board.

If there's a system for white that refutes the winawer or at least puts white ahead I would love to know. I thought man and machine agreed with analysis that the positions were very slightly better for white out of the opening.

#oklahoma

3.Nc3 and 3.e5 are both adventageous for White.  All other moves are equal at best for White.

Going based on main responses (others are worse), throw some numbers at you:

3.Nc3! Bb4 4.e5 c5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 Ne7 7.Qg4 scores 56.4% for White across 3353 games.

3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 and now:

• 5...Qb6 6.a3 scores 54.15% across 2397 games
• 5...Bd7 6.Be2 scores 54.3% across 1447 games

And to prove other moves are worse:

3.Nd2?! c5! 4.exd5 exd5! 5.Ngf3 Nf6! 6.Bb5+ Bd7 7.Bxd7+ Nbxd7 8.O-O Be7 9.dxc5 Nxc5 10.Nb3 Nce4! and White has scored a miserable 50.7% across 288 games (Average score for White is 54% in the game of chess).

Evaluation is completely equal in the advance and winawer. The poisoned pawn is good for white imo but black has the Qa5-Qa4 variation which is hard to crack. He also has the simple solid 0-0 after Qg4 in the mainline.